The Pharmacy Guild is set to demonstrate a prototype real-time monitoring and clinical decision support tool it has developed to combat the misuse of combination analgesics containing codeine as it goes on the offensive against proposals to reschedule codeine products as prescription only.

Calling the proposed scheduling changes “a blunt instrument”, Guild executive director David Quilty said they would be ineffective at addressing concerns about abuse and could have unintended adverse consequences such as encouraging more consumption of higher strength doses in larger packs.

Tunstall Healthcare has developed a new smartphone app linked to a 24-hour monitoring system that is designed to provide security to lone workers such as community nurses.

Tunstall CIO Geoff Feakes said the myCareTrack app is a mobile safety solution tailored for people who work alone or in potentially hazardous environments.

The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) is urging the federal government to dump proposed changes to the eHealth Practice Incentives Program (ePIP) that would see the quarterly payments tied to 'active and meaningful use' of the PCEHR.

The Department of Health released a discussion paper on the proposed changes last month, suggesting that four of the five criteria for the ePIP remain the same but that the fifth – showing readiness to use the PCEHR – should be changed to demonstrating actual meaningful use of the system.

While the category has been a slow burner after more than three years of operation, the number of specialist letters being uploaded to the PCEHR is beginning to gather steam, with over 4000 now on the national system.

Few if any have been uploaded from private rooms using common practice management systems, with the vast majority coming from the Northern Territory's five public hospitals, where uploading clinical documents to a shared health record has already proven its worth.

Paper-optional prescriptions are the obvious next electronic step for the community pharmacy sector with 62 per cent of pharmacists believing they could help prevent fraud and misadventure, a national survey by electronic prescription exchange vendor eRx Script Exchange has found.

eRx, part of the Fred IT Group that is half owned by the Pharmacy Guild and half by Telstra Health, undertook a survey of 740 pharmacists in February and March this year to gauge pharmacy use of electronic transfer of prescriptions (ETP), what pharmacists valued the most about using the technology and what they expected to see in the future.

This post is devoted entirely to our new website, which launched a few weeks ago with quite a few additional features and refinements to be rolled out in the weeks ahead.

Whether it be as a reader or as an advertiser, our plans for the new website are more than cosmetic so please take the time to review this post and be sure to get in touch if you have any queries or feedback.

Industry organisations have called for active involvement in the “rebooting” of the PCEHR from consumers and health information professionals as well as clinicians following the announcement late last week of a new committee charged with clearing the way for an independent government agency responsible for eHealth.

The government is setting up an implementation taskforce to oversee the transition of responsibility for eHealth, including operation of the PCEHR and the roles currently fulfilled by NEHTA, to a new body called the Australian Commission for eHealth (ACeH).

Melbourne GP and former NEHTA clinical lead Nathan Pinskier will again chair the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners' (RACGP) committee for eHealth policy, which has recently been renamed the RACGP Expert Committee – eHealth and Practice Systems (REC-eHPS).

The committee is planning to hold the RACGP's first eHealth Forum at the end of this month in Melbourne to explore eHealth developments, information management and issues that affect the future operation of Australian general practice.

A web portal to allow healthcare providers that don't have a practice management system to refer patients electronically is set to go live this month as part of the nationwide roll-out of eReferrals.

Health Minister Jonathan Coleman said the portal would enable eReferrals to be offered to more providers across the country.

A web-based referral app for cataract surgery, a joined-up system for adverse drug reactions, a low-cost set of devices to allow GPs to better provide eye care and an iPad app to help diagnose and treat skin conditions remotely are all in the running for the 2015 Clinicians' Challenge, being announced at the Health Informatics New Zealand (HiNZ) conference in Christchurch next week.

The annual Clinicians' Challenge, a joint initiative between HiNZ and the Ministry of Health, usually turns up some good ideas that can be commercialised, including the 2011 winner Listen Please from North Shore Hospital intensive care specialist Janet Liang.

Pulse+IT's weekly weekend round-up of international health IT and eHealth news:

FHIR interoperability advancing, Cerner expects first apps soon
Health Data Management ~ Greg Slabodkin ~ 09/10/2015

EHR vendor Cerner has unveiled a production version of Health Level Seven’s Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) framework for information sharing based on the latest web standards.

Harlow trust challenges EHR-related fine
Digital Health News ~ Thomas Meek ~ 08/10/2015

The Princess Alexandra Hospital NHS Trust is facing a fine of around £1.8 million for multiple breaches of the 52-week target for treating patients due to problems with its implementation of the Cosmic electronic patient record from Cambio.

Pulse+IT's weekly round-up of Australian and New Zealand health, IT and eHealth news:

GPs in renewed push against doctor shopping
Medical Observer ~ Staff writer ~ 09/10/2015

GPs and pharmacists have teamed up to complain about the extremely slow rollout of real-time drug monitoring.

Levy steps down from Orion role as Auckland DHBs consider 'major' IT investments
NZ Doctor ~ Cliff Taylor ~ 09/10/2015

Conflict of interest concerns have forced Auckland and Waitemata DHBs chair Lester Levy to give up his role as a director of health IT company Orion Health.

Former NSW Health director-general Robyn Kruk has been appointed as the independent chair of the steering committee for the taskforce charged with setting up the Australian Commission for eHealth, joining what has been greeted as a pleasing number of seasoned practitioners with real experience of eHealth and health IT implementations on the committee.

In addition to federal Department of Health special advisor and former CIO Paul Madden, the committee includes Stephen Moo, CIO of the Northern Territory Department of Health, and Michael Walsh, currently director-general of Queensland Health and a former eHealth NSW CEO/CIO.

Prominent healthcare organisations have issued an open letter to the federal, state and territory health ministers demanding action on the slow roll-out of the Electronic Recording and Reporting of Controlled Drugs (ERRCD) system, calling for an implementation plan to be agreed at the next COAG Health Council meeting.

Real-time prescription monitoring has so far only been rolled out in Tasmania, where the precursor to ERRCD was first developed, with the other states and territories at varying stages in their implementations. This is despite repeated and very public calls for the urgent implementation of the system by a number of coroners, particularly in Victoria, South Australia and Queensland, following accidental deaths due to overdoses of prescription drugs.

Telstra Health has entered into an agreement to acquire EOS Technologies, the technology arm of WA-headquartered in-home health and care provider Silver Chain Group.

EOS Technologies was first set up in Perth to develop and commercialise the ComCare community care management system used by Silver Chain nurses, which includes a desktop version and an Android-based mobile app.

Even if he doesn't quite get over the line through crowdfunding efforts for his MoodMission app, Monash University PhD student David Bakker still plans to develop the concept as an easy, intuitive way to help people learn better ways of coping with low moods and anxious feelings.

Mr Bakker, who has been developing the app over the past 18 months with his supervisor at Monash Nikki Rickard, is currently trying to raise the last $6000 or so of a $20,000 target on crowdfunding site Pozible.

The federal government has released the selection criteria for potential trial sites of opt-out models for the PCEHR, despite promises that it would have the chosen sites agreed to and announced last month.

The criteria appear to downgrade the original targets of up to one million people per site to between 250,000 and 500,000 people each, and call for areas that have a higher than average PCEHR uptake by providers.

Australia’s three peak health information organisations have formalised their co-presentation of a Health Information Workforce Summit to be held in Sydney later this month.

The Health Informatics Society of Australia (HISA) is the latest to formalise its commitment to the summit, along with the Australasian College of Health Informatics (ACHI) and event organiser the Health Information Management Association of Australia (HIMAA).

The RACGP is running a survey to gauge the uptake of technology in general practice, calling on GPs, practice managers, practice nurses and allied health professionals to have their say.

Predominantly dealing with mobile device adoption rather than information technology, the survey aims to help the college understand what systems are being used, what future investment is needed and what are the key technology challenges faced by general practice teams.

How to extract real, practical value from big healthcare data is the theme of the Big Data conference being held in Sydney later this month, organised by the Health Informatics Society of Australia (HISA).

With an opening address by Zoran Bolevich, the acting CEO/CIO of eHealth NSW, Big Data will feature representatives from a number of jurisdictions and academic institutions as well as overseas speakers, including Isaac Kohane of the Centre for Biomedical Informatics at Harvard Medical School.

Orion Health has announced that its Rhapsody integration engine will act as the link between the US Department of Defense's new electronic health record and those used by civilian healthcare facilities as part of the $US4.3 billion Defense Healthcare Management System Modernization (DHMSM) project, colloquially known as Dim-sum.

The US Department of Defense (DoD) announced in July that it was awarding the contract for a commercial off-the-shelf EHR for serving military personnel to a conglomerate led by technology solutions giant Leidos in association with EHR vendor Cerner and Accenture.

UnitingCare Queensland executive director Richard Royle, former AMA president Steve Hambleton and rural GP Ewen McPhee are set to be announced as three members of a steering committee being set up to oversee the transition of eHealth operations from NEHTA and the Department of Health to a new Australian Commission for eHealth (ACeH).

The committee will also include at least one jurisdictional health department CIO and one director-general, understood to be the Northern Territory's Stephen Moo and Queensland Health D-G Michael Walsh.

A subset of the SNOMED clinical terminology specifically for health encounters in general practice has been released, along with a map from the subset to the International Classification of Primary Care, Version 2 (ICPC-2).

The International Health Terminology Standards Development Organisation (IHTSDO), which is responsible for SNOMED CT, and the World Organisation of Family Doctors (Wonca), which develops and maintains ICPC-2, have jointly developed the general practitioner/family physician (GP/FP) subset, which includes concepts that represent the terms commonly used by GPs to describe reasons for encounter or health issues (problems).

Pulse+IT's weekly weekend round-up of international health IT and eHealth news:

NHS Number use becomes law
Digital Health News ~ Rebecca McBeth ~ 01/10/2015

The NHS Number must be used as a single patient identifier across the health and social care system, under a new law which comes into effect today.

Meaningful Use program seen interfering with EHR interoperability
Health Data Management ~ Greg Slabodkin ~ 01/10/2015

The federal government’s Meaningful Use program is hindering, not helping, private sector efforts aimed at enabling nationwide electronic health record interoperability.

Pulse+IT's weekly round-up of Australian and New Zealand health, IT and eHealth news:

For the love of Tetris: Tasmanian researchers 'wire up' players to study how gaming triggers emotions
ABC News ~ Damien Peck ~ 02/10/2015

It is not all fun and games for a group of Tasmanian researchers studying the range of emotions people experience while playing video games.

SA Health renal truck helps APY Lands patients return home during treatment
ABC News ~ Natalie Whiting ~ 02/10/2015

Dozens of Indigenous people from South Australia's remote APY Lands have been forced to relocate to receive treatment for kidney disease.

The NBN company has successfully launched the first of its long-term satellites, which promises better broadband for regional and remote Australia and increased capacity to provide telehealth services.

NBN Co has made available a short video of the launch, which took place this morning at the Guiana Space Centre in South America.

A full-day session on how eHealth and telehealth can affect the management of chronic and complex conditions in rural and remote Australia will be held at the Rural Medicine Australia conference in Adelaide later this month.

The session will be facilitated by former Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine (ACRRM) president Richard Murray, and will include a number of panel discussions on eHealth and primary care reform along with demonstrations of eHealth tools and capabilities.

MIMS has launched a new version of its popular iMIMS app for iPhones, featuring a redeveloped user interface and faster downloads.

iMIMS was first launched in March 2011 specifically for users who needed a mobile, locally installed way to access MIMS medicines information.

The membership of a taskforce that will lead the transition of the operation and control of eHealth to a new independent commission will be announced 'imminently', Pulse+IT understands.

The implementation taskforce was promised by Health Minister Sussan Ley in the May budget, with a Department of Health (DoH) discussion paper stating that it would be established in July.

The federal government will bring responsibility for aged care back to the health portfolio two years after it was moved to the Department of Social Services.

Health Minister Sussan Ley was today sworn in as minister for aged care and said in a statement that newly appointed assistant minister for health, WA MP Ken Wyatt, would have a specific focus on aged care.

Adelaide-based health information system vendor Alcidion has officially launched Miya Bed Manager, based on the intelligent patient journey and bed management system it has implemented at Western Health.

Described by Alcidion's vice president for clinical engagement Leanne Dillon as an “eHealth guidance system”, Miya Bed Manager promises to increase transparency about patient flow, bed capacity and demand.

Clinical software vendor Getz Clinical has added the latest version of its PreOp module to its cloud-based anaesthesia information management system.

PreOp is a web-based application that integrates with other Getz Clinical Cloud modules as well as with a hospital's patient administration system. Completed PreOp questionnaires are immediately accessible to clinicians anywhere in a hospital network, including during surgical procedures.

Start-up company TeleConsult, which launched at GP15 in Melbourne last week, is looking to raise $1 million to support the local and global expansion of its telehealth platform, which offers pay-per-minute telephone consultations between patients and their regular doctor, with video capability planned for the future.

Devised by Sydney-based consultant respiratory physician Jonathan Rutland, TeleConsult promises to finally provide a way that doctors can be paid for offering advice and follow-up care over the phone to their patients.

Dental practice management software vendor Software of Excellence has partnered with online appointment booking and health directory service Health Engine.

The partnership will enable Software of Excellence users to access HealthEngine's integrated online marketing solutions through their existing software.

Sonic Clinical Services, the primary care division of diagnostics giant Sonic Healthcare, has come on board as one of two new investors in Tasmanian-based GP2U as the telehealth firm completes a series B capital raise to fund its expansion plans.

Sonic Clinical Services owns and runs the Independent Practitioner Network (IPN) of general practices as well as a number of skin clinics. Its group executive, Scott Beattie, is set to join the GP2U board, along with the second investor, medical entrepreneur Andrew Pascoe.

Pulse+IT's weekly round-up of Australian and New Zealand health, IT and eHealth news:

Patients are people, not 'consumers', says Child
NZ Doctor ~ Cliff Taylor ~ 25/09/2015

NZMA chair Stephen Child has strongly criticised a draft discussion paper from the Health Quality & Safety Commission, describing it as difficult to understand and marred with inappropriate terminology.

Fixing Qld Health’s IT systems: start with the plumbing
iTNews ~ Allie Coyne ~ 24/09/2015

Queensland Health will eschew a big bang transformation of its legacy systems in favour of a lower-risk, incremental approach to systems replacement in the hopes of reviving its IT fortunes.

Health Informatics New Zealand (HiNZ) will live-stream the keynote speakers at its upcoming conference in Christchurch in addition to the sold-out National Nursing Informatics Conference being held the day prior.

Titled 'Nursing but not as you know it', the nursing informatics conference will this year feature presentations from three experts with hands-on experience in developing or implementing IT systems for the nursing workforce.

The Queensland Department of Health has rejected claims by an insider that there are major budget overruns in its integrated electronic medical record (ieMR) project and has defended the four-stage release strategy for the system, which is seeing one hospital pay $175,000 a month for medical record and document scanning.

A Queensland Health source has told Pulse+IT that while the project was on track as recently as August 2014 to deliver the ieMR for approximately $190 million to seven hospital and health services – involving nine hospitals in total – the former Newman government's statewide ICT renewal program had disrupted the plans, with senior staff involved in the roll-out leaving the Health Services Information Agency (HSIA) and the establishment of a new Chief Health Information Office separate from HSIA causing further disruption.

HL7 International has published release two of the Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) draft standard for trial use (DSTU), incorporating extensive changes from implementation partners including some of the biggest health IT vendors in the world.

First developed by Melbourne-based health informatician Grahame Grieve, FHIR is fast becoming the standard of choice for healthcare data interoperability, with vendors large and small beginning to implement its specifications and healthcare organisations and governments also paying close attention to its potential.

Medtech Global has launched an evolution in its product suite with its new Medtech Evolution clinical and practice management software, which is aimed at putting GPs in control of their valuable time and enabling them to customise the system for their own workflows.

Medtech Evolution has been available to New Zealand users for almost a year but the Australian version is a slightly different technology with a different support base, Medtech Global chief technology officer Rama Kumble said.

Appointment management and patient engagement application developer Appointuit has been acquired by the newly formed, Australian-based company Jayex Healthcare, best known for its range of self-service kiosks for the primary and acute care markets.

Appointuit, which was launched in 2011 by Brisbane-based practice managers and owners Rosemary and Gordon Cooper, still holds the record for having Australia's most popular medical appointment app in the Apple App Store and on Google Play.

Sydney researchers are calling for the implementation of a simple text message system to improve the health of heart attack survivors after it was shown to help reduce weight, blood pressure and cholesterol and was well received by patients.

Westmead Hospital cardiologist Clara Chow said the Tobacco, Exercise and Diet Messages (TEXT ME) trial used a very simple mobile health strategy that could be provided routinely by hospitals as part of a discharge program for heart attack survivors as well as other conditions like stroke.

South Australia's flagship new Royal Adelaide Hospital will not open next April as planned, with SA health minister Jack Snelling announcing last week that construction of the hospital will not be complete until July next year and the opening date has been pushed back to November 2016.

However, plans are still on track for the new hospital to open with the Enterprise Patient Administration System (EPAS) installed from day one, SA Health says.

Melbourne-based aged care software vendor Management Advantage is currently rolling out a major new version of its Manad Plus care and management software to existing clients and is set to launch three new native apps that will allow nurses and carers to add observations and progress notes at the bedside through their phones, whether they be Apple, Android or Windows devices.

Management Advantage general manager Ben Sturzaker said he believed having a native app in each of the three apps stores was a first for residential aged care in Australia. Other vendors have web-based products that can run on mobile devices but they are either not native apps or all three operating systems are not catered for, he said.

The federal government plans to introduce changes to the Practice Incentives Program eHealth incentive (ePIP) from next February that are likely to see general practices required to show evidence of meaningful use of the PCEHR to continue to receive payments, which can be worth up to $50,000 a year.

The Department of Health has released a discussion paper on proposed changes to the ePIP, with figures showing that while 72 per cent of all general practices were receiving ePIP payments in the 2013-2014 financial year, only 16 per cent were actually uploading clinical information to the system.

The implementation of the next release of the integrated electronic medical record (ieMR) at Cairns Hospital has been delayed until early next year but the plan to go live at Princess Alexandra Hospital (PAH) in November is on track, Queensland Health says.

A well-placed source at Queensland Health told Pulse+IT this week that the implementation at the 780-bed PAH was still in its design phase and testing had yet to be committed to, but Health Services Information Agency (HSIA) chief technology officer Colin McCririck denied this, saying PAH was on track to be the first large scale hospital to go digital as scheduled.

Telstra Health has appointed NHS England’s national director for patients and information Tim Kelsey as its new commercial director, based in Melbourne.

Mr Kelsey, a former Sunday Times news editor who co-founded healthcare analytics firm Dr Foster with fellow journalist Roger Taylor in 1999 and began publishing the annual Good Hospital Guide in 2001, is also the architect of the controversial care.data program, which aims to collect patient data from GP medical records.

Federal health minister Sussan Ley has introduced a new bill to parliament that will amend the PCEHR and Healthcare Identifier (HI) Service acts to change the name of the $1.2 billion system and allow her to apply an opt-out model following a trial.

The Health Legislation Amendment (eHealth) Bill 2015 is aimed at changing the nomenclature of the system, with terms such as healthcare 'consumer' changed to healthcare recipient and PCEHR to My Health Record.

The Department of Social Services (DSS) held webinars this week for aged care service providers and their IT vendors as it nears the roll-out of its DSS Data Exchange web portal for service activity reporting for the Commonwealth Home Support Program (CHSP).

The DSS Data Exchange (DEX) will replace all existing service activity reports including Home and Community Care (HACC) minimum data sets for the CHSP from November 1 and promises to be a streamlined way for aged care service providers to upload mandatory data.

Auckland-based HSAGlobal has gone into liquidation owing $4 million following the sale of its Connected Care Management Solution (CCMS) to Whanau Tahi, the wholly owned IT arm of social and healthcare service provider Waipareira Trust.

Many former HSAGlobal staff, including founder and managing director Matt Hector-Taylor, have moved over to Whanau Tahi since the sale, although the company's UK operations have been put on ice.

US-based Xplore Technologies, which in April acquired the Motion Computing line of products widely used in healthcare, has released what it says is the most progressive rugged tablet available, the XSLATE B10.

Weighing just over one kilogram, the Xslate B10 is a compact tablet featuring long battery life with a 20-hour hot swappable second battery option.

The federal government is now making available recent statistics on the uptake and use of the PCEHR on its eHealth website but has still not released promised legislation enabling an opt-out version of the system and there is still no decision on the location or make-up of the $51 million trial sites of opt-out models.

There is also no word as yet on the make-up of an implementation taskforce that is expected to oversee the transition of responsibilities for eHealth from the National E-Health Transition Authority (NEHTA) to a proposed new Australian Commission for eHealth (ACeH).

The Australasian College of Health Informatics (ACHI) will take part in the health information workforce summit being organised by the Health Information Management Association of Australia (HIMAA) in Sydney next month.

The summit aims to address the health information workforce shortage and configuration challenges highlighted by the 2013 Health Workforce Australia (HWA) health information workforce report, which is currently under review by the Australian health ministers’ health workforce principal committee.

Sydney-based health informatics firm Ocean Informatics is set to use the success of the LinkedEHR platform it has built in association with Western Sydney Primary Health Network (WentWest) to offer its services and technology to more PHNs following a recent injection of funds from a private investor.

The company is also rolling out what it says is the largest implemented infection control system in Australia with its Multiprac Infection Control solution, which has recently gone live at Mater Health Services in Queensland and the five public hospitals in the Northern Territory. It is now live in 72 hospitals.

Victorian health promotion agency VicHealth has developed a guide to health and wellbeing apps using an Australian-first rating system that shows many are ineffective and poorly designed.

Launching the Healthy Living Apps Guide today, Victorian Health Minister Jill Hennessy said apps can be a great way to help in achieving a healthier lifestyle, but some are not as useful as they claim.

Over 180 general practices are now offering patient portals in what has been slow but steady growth in the uptake of the technology.

The National Health IT Board had hoped that all New Zealanders would have access to a patient portal by the end of last year, but as of this month, 181 practices are now offering a portal, up from 132 in April.

Pulse+IT's weekly round-up of Australian and New Zealand health, IT and eHealth news:

CSIRO uses to 3D printing to create new ribs for cancer patient
Computerworld ~ Rohan Pearce ~ 11/09/2015

A Spanish cancer patient has a new, customised titanium sternum and ribcage, thanks in part to a collaboration between the CSIRO and a Melbourne medical device company.

Ministry sets deadline for DHB sugar ban
NZ Doctor ~ Cliff Taylor ~ 11/09/2015

Director-general of health Chai Chuah has told all DHBs to get rid of sugar-sweetened drinks from their premises by the end of the month.

More than two in five New Zealanders over the age of 65 now regularly play video games, many for the positive effects gaming can have on their thinking skills, coordination and mental stimulation but also for fun and maintaining social connections, the latest Digital New Zealand report shows.

The report is compiled every second year by Bond University lecturer on emerging and interactive media industries Jeff Brand, on behalf of the Interactive Games & Entertainment Association (IGEA).

Child health support organisation Plunket has officially gone live with its new cloud-based electronic Plunket Health Record (ePHR) application, which has been built on Microsoft technologies and will eventually be deployed on around 800 Windows tablets to clinical nurses across New Zealand.

The app will replace the paper-based processes familiar to generations of New Zealand families. Nine out of every 10 newborns are seen by a Plunket nurse, accounting for between 50,000 and 60,000 babies every year.

Apple has shown off the healthcare capabilities of the new operating system for its Apple Watch, demonstrating a US-developed app called AirStrip that allows doctors to securely communicate patient data as well as remotely monitor vital signs, all on their wristwatch.

The company also demonstrated its new, larger iPad Pro that looks a good competitor at the enterprise level with Microsoft's Surface Pro. It comes complete with new technology that uses magnetic contacts to convey both power and data bidirectionally and allows peripheral devices such as its new keyboard to connect to the device without the need for Bluetooth or batteries.

Queensland has seen a 42 per cent increase in outpatient services provided by telehealth in the 2015 financial year, with inpatient services also increasing across the state's 3000-odd systems.

Oncology medical consultations led the pack in outpatient services provided, while geriatric and general medical/surgical consultations saw the most growth for inpatient telehealth services. Inpatient consultations saw a doubling in growth over the period off a low base, Queensland Health figures show.

Best Practice Software (Bp) is gearing up for the imminent launch of the next version of its clinical and practice management solutions following a sneak preview at the company's annual summit on the Gold Coast on the weekend.

Bp's chief relationship officer Lorraine Pyefinch said the company had wanted to have the full version – dubbed Lava, one of the colours of the company's finch mascot – available at the event but it was still in the final stages of quality assurance.

The Dementia Collaborative Research Centres (DCRCs) have launched a dementia care app to provide guidance to carers about the behavioural changes that can occur in dementia.

The Care4Dementia app is based on printed guides developed by the DCRC for Assessment and Better Care (DCRC ABC) at the University of NSW, which are also available in app form for clinicians.

Two groups from Sydney's St George Hospital are set to implement agile technology developed by clinician-led design specialists iCIMS to manage clinical workflows for oncology multi-disciplinary team meetings (MDM).

St George's peritonectomy oncology group and its breast cancer group have chosen to implement slightly differing versions of the MDM technology, with the breast cancer group also opting for a new oncology clinical information system from iCIMS.

Telstra Health's wholly owned subsidiary HealthConnex is set to launch a new version of its ConnectingCare secure messaging and referral platform for community care organisations that is interoperable with the Argus secure messaging service widely used by GPs.

ConnectingCare is a web-based platform aimed at community care organisations and allied health practitioners who don't have a clinical system but who want to send and receive standardised eReferrals and other clinical documents securely.

Singapore has long been considered one of the leading hubs in Asia for medical tourism, with the World Health Organisation (WHO) ranking it as the sixth best country in the world and the best in Asia for patient-centric healthcare.

In the last few years, however, the dynamics have changed and countries such as Malaysia, Thailand, China and India are improving their healthcare infrastructure to compete with Singapore to become Asia’s most popular medical tourism destination.

Clinical software vendor MedicalDirector has been appointed as the new service provider for the Victorian Department of Health and Human Services' Clinicians' Health Channel (CHC).

The CHC is an online clinical information portal that provides access to healthcare information resources for doctors, nurses, pharmacists, allied health professionals and health librarians working in the Victorian public health system, including drug and poisons information, medical research databases, medical and nursing journals, clinical guidelines and point of care tools.

Pulse+IT's weekly weekend round-up of international health IT and eHealth news:

Digital stethoscope that links with EHR gets FDA clearance
Health Data Management ~ Greg Slabodkin ~ 03/09/2015

The Food and Drug Administration has approved use of a digital stethoscope that can integrate heart sounds into a patient’s electronic health record.

Bryant puts paperless future on CCGs
Digital Health News ~ Rebecca McBeth ~ 03/09/2015

Clinical commissioning groups have overall responsibility for delivering a paperless NHS by 2020 and will manage any funding made available to support this ambition, NHS England has said.

Pulse+IT's weekly round-up of Australian and New Zealand health, IT and eHealth news:

NBN a $20bn growth kickstart
The Australian ~ Mitchell Bingemann ~ 04/09/2015

The National Broadband Network has become a default stimulus program amid the gloom infecting the broader economy, as the taxpayer-funded company prepares to spend more than $20 billion on the nation’s largest ever infrastructure project and hire 7000 new workers over the next five years.

Q&A: Professor Phelps defends 'best specialist' website
Australian Doctor ~ Tessa Hoffman ~ 04/09/2015

The Specialist Doctors website generated a storm of controversy when it was launched last month.

Queensland Health has developed a strategy for health ICT and eHealth that calls for an investment of more than $1.2 billion over the next 20 years, including $730 million for clinical software such as a new patient administration system, rolling out the Cerner integrated electronic medical record (ieMR) to more hospitals and the replacement of the ageing Auslab statewide pathology system.

Clinical applications represent 58 per cent of the total investment required, with a further $300 million required for ICT infrastructure, $100 million for business systems and $130 million for the “digital future”, including implementing interoperability standards, patient and provider identity systems, clinical terminology services, patient portals and enhancements to The Viewer, the web-based application that provides clinicians with a view of patient information and the PCEHR.

Telstra Health's wholly owned subsidiary HealthConnex has launched a new version of its The Care Manager (TCM) case management software for aged and community care that can interoperate with the company's MyCareManager client portal through a FHIR interface.

In what is thought to be one of the first instances of the FHIR (Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources) standard being using in the wild, version 7.16 of TCM will be able to interface with MyCareManager to provide home care clients with easy access to the new monthly financial statements they are receiving as part of the consumer-directed care (CDC) reforms.

The federal Department of Health (DoH) has issued a request for tender for a new ICT system to build a National Cancer Screening Register, which will see the results of cervical and bowel cancer screening communicated through the PCEHR.

The federal government announced in the May budget that it would set up a new register to support a revised national bowel cancer screening program as well as a new national cervical cancer program that will see a primary human papillomavirus (HP) test replace the current Pap test for cervical screening from May 2017.

The Queensland government has funded a new portal being launched next week to provide information on smart assistive technologies to consumers and home and community care providers.

Developed by innovation facilitator Community Resourcing, the Community Care Smart Assistive Technology Collaborative Platform will initially target the thousand or so Queensland-based home and community care providers for under 65s, particularly those involved in the roll-out of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS).

InterSystems is set to launch a next-generation laboratory business management system (LBMS) early next year that promises to take laboratory information management beyond simply addressing the 3Rs to being able to analyse information at each stage, no matter where the data is captured.

Called InterSystems TrakCare Laboratory Enterprise, the development of the new system was announced today, with a preview of its capabilities to be shown at the Australasian Association of Clinical Biochemists (AACB) conference in Sydney later this month. It is set for a commercial launch early in 2016.

Adelaide-based Alcidion Corporation is set to roll out its new Miya Orders emergency department order sets technology at Royal Darwin Hospital and Alice Springs Hospital before the end of the year.

Alcidion announced last month that it had won a $1.75 million contract with the Northern Territory Department of Health to deliver best practice ED order sets. The idea is to streamline pathology ordering and reduce over-ordering, and at the same time provide clinical decision support at the point of care.

An app using games and videos to show children what's involved in medical images took out the health category at the national iAwards late last week, with the National Blood Authority's BloodNet laboratory information system interface and the Murdoch Children's Research Institute/Curve Tomorrow Sonny Movement rehab platform also featuring prominently.

The National Blood Authority took out the government category at the awards for the BloodNet LIS interface, which automates the real-time exchange of hospital inventory levels of critical blood stocks and the status of each unit, along with the Victorian Government Inspiration Award and a merit award in the health category.

It is still unclear how many jobs will be lost from research body National ICT Australia (NICTA) or what funding will be made available to the new entity that has been established to absorb its work.

Minister for Industry Ian Macfarlane and Minister for Communications Malcolm Turnbull issued a joint statement late last week announcing that NICTA would merge with the CSIRO's Digital Productivity flagship to form Data61, which will be led by technology entrepreneur Adrian Turner (pictured).

Vensa Health is gearing up for the launch of version 4.0 of its TXT2Remind practice-patient messaging system, which has five new features that the Auckland-based company hopes will automate most if not all routine communication to patients.

The company is also planning to use some of the funding it received through a Callaghan Innovation growth grant to begin building new technology for the nascent “health care home” or “medical home” concept that four of the largest PHOs have recently submitted to the Ministry of Health.

Pulse+IT's weekly round-up of Australian and New Zealand health, IT and eHealth news:

The NBN satellite Malcolm Turnbull never wanted prepares for liftoff
Sydney Morning Herald ~ Hannah Francis ~ 28/08/2015

In 32 days and counting, Australia is set to blast a satellite weighing as much as an elephant one-tenth of the way to the moon.

Primary embraces 'medical home' model
Australian Doctor ~ Paul Smith ~ 28/08/2015

Corporate giant Primary Health Care says it is embracing the “medical home” concept and is now pitching the idea to federal politicians.

Pulse+IT's weekly weekend round-up of international health IT and eHealth news:

Epic grabs VA software contract
HealthcareITNews ~ Tom Sullivan ~ 27/08/2015

Whereas Epic late last month lost out on the Defense Department's massive modernization contract, the EHR maker is part of a team that won a smaller but notable bid this week.

IT belongs to Glasgow
Digital Health News ~ Thomas Meek ~ 27/08/2015

When NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde decided to close down several of the city’s ageing hospitals to create a new ‘super hospital’ on the old site of the Southern General, it wanted to create a modern facility that was truly fit for the 21st century.

St Stephen's Hospital in Queensland's Hervey Bay is currently running a benefits realisation study in association with PwC as well as some studies on nursing workflows to accurately measure the effects on safety and quality of care of its integrated electronic medical record and medical devices.

The $96 million, 96-bed St Stephen's, which opened in October last year, has implemented 29 applications in the Cerner Millennium suite including Cerner's CareAware iBus solution for device connectivity, with 20 medical devices now integrated with the EMR and using it as the single source of truth.

The fundamental change towards consumer-directed care (CDC) that has radically reshaped the aged care sector over the last few years offers great opportunities to the ICT industry above and beyond traditional residential or home-based aged care.

Lynda O'Grady, a former Telstra executive who is now the chair of the Aged Care Financing Authority (ACFA) and independent director of the National E-Health Transition Authority (NEHTA) among other director roles, told the Health Informatics Conference (HIC 2015) in Brisbane earlier this month that ICT companies interested in exploring the huge growth expected in aged care should look to the vast majority of people who will not require personal care but who are interested in using technology to keep active and have fun.

Market-leading aged care software vendor iCareHealth is set to release redeveloped versions of its medications management app at the end of the year and has moved to six-monthly release cycles for its core clinical and care management software now that Microsoft's Azure cloud platform is available in Australian data centres.

iCareHealth's chief technology officer Craige Pendleton-Browne said the company had moved to hosting its development and test environments in Azure, which meant it was able to innovate faster and implement continuous integration.

The move has also allowed the company to move to an Agile methodology faster and more easily than expected, Mr Pendleton-Browne said.

The West Australian government will delay the opening of the $1.2 billion Perth Children's Hospital (PCH) if necessary as it seeks to avoid the same problems experienced with the commissioning and opening of Fiona Stanley Hospital (FSH).

WA Health Minister Kim Hames told ABC News today that he was “nervous” about whether the hospital would be completed on time. The opening of the hospital would be delayed if construction was not completed by November 30 as the government would take five months from whatever date it received the keys, Dr Hames said.